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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24476620">Say Anything</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ancientcitylullaby/pseuds/ancientcitylullaby'>ancientcitylullaby</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Macbeth - Shakespeare, SHAKESPEARE William - Works</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blind Character, Consequences, Deaf Character, Ghosts, M/M, Muteness, Past Character Death, Post-Canon, They're both ghosts and its a rough time, don't think I'm slacking on AOY but I wanna post this cause it made my friend sad, post-death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 02:48:19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,026</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24476620</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ancientcitylullaby/pseuds/ancientcitylullaby</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Two ghosts haunt a desolate castle. </p>
<p>Banquo's throat was cut. As a result, he will never speak again. Macbeth, as a fitting punishment for his crimes, and as a result of his being beheaded, cannot see, hear, nor speak. Engulfed in eternal silence, all he wishes is to make amends, if it is even possible.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Banquo (Macbeth)/Macbeth</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>22</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thamys020/gifts">Thamys020</a>, <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jens_Holland/gifts">Jens_Holland</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>For my two friends who helped come up with the idea and also unofficially did a beta reading of this.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>I would never speak again. The deep cut across my throat made sure of that. </p>
<p>Since then, my thoughts have never been so loud. I’ve been writing, writing, to my son, he must know that I love him. I drew him pictures, I am still here, though silent, near-formless.</p>
<p>I was not there when they killed Macbeth. I did not see Macduff cut his head from his body. Executed like a traitor, since I suppose that’s what he was.</p>
<p>Was it selfish that I thought mostly of his treachery toward me?</p>
<p>I was afraid to write any letters to him. I have nothing left to say, and I know he won’t care. </p>
<p>He made up his mind on that long ago.</p>
<p>“I love you. Soon you and me, we’ll run away. You me, and Fleance,” he used to say. What a lie that had turned out to be.</p>
<p>I was a fool, because I missed his touch. I missed the world we made, where it was just him and me. That world never existed. The world outside came in to swallow us like it did to so many before, swallowed up by the endless cycle. You kill to survive, don’t you. That’s what they taught you. </p>
<p>I was not meant to survive. Neither was he.</p>
<p>Upon the battlements I wandered, as it seems all errant souls will do.</p>
<p>All I asked was for you to trust me, to love me, was that too much to ask?</p>
<p>There was a figure in the dark just beyond my view; I only had vision in one of my eyes; my killers had made sure of that too. I opened my mouth, and still no sound came out, still the airy whisper I have come to know as a voice. </p>
<p>What were my last words? Telling Fleance to run. And he did, the brave boy. Live on for me, little one.</p>
<p>The shadow before my eyes seemed to wander, more aimless than I had been. They clung to the walls, stumbled, looking so lost, who is that—</p>
<p>No...</p>
<p>….</p>
<p>Beth?<br/>Far removed from the tyrant king I died for. Far removed from the strong warrior I once loved. </p>
<p>I was angry. I wanted to grab him, shake him, scream at him though I knew I couldn’t scream anymore, “Why did you do it? Why did you do that to me?” </p>
<p>I watched him before me, how he limped, cautious, his eyes wide and yet… they were pale.<br/>The cut, clear around his neck….</p>
<p>I stepped toward him. He did not react.</p>
<p>Snapped my fingers before his face. Nothing.</p>
<p>Angrily, I grabbed him by the shoulders. Finally he responded. Terrified, he shoved me away. He fell to his knees. </p>
<p>He was crying… he buried his face in his hands. </p>
<p>His eyes were empty; he could not see me, I realized. Couldn’t hear me either, it seemed.</p>
<p>What was I supposed to do now?</p>
<p>Here before me was the man who had me killed. The man I used to love, who, though I dreaded to admit it, I still loved.</p>
<p>Grasping blindly, the stones in the floor…</p>
<p>I took hold of his hand. Gently. He traced the back of my hand. To see if there was anything he knew, but the ring he once gave me was gone, along with the promise engraved in it.</p>
<p>His eyes were wide, and he was trembling.</p>
<p>I was afraid, suddenly. Afraid to get too close to him, after what he did. </p>
<p>I let go. </p>
<p>I watched him try to speak, as I let go to join the others, to leave this sorry sight because this was the fate he chose for himself, or at least that’s what I told myself.</p>
<p>But still, as tears began to fill his eyes again, I saw him silently mouth one word, with lips that could no longer speak.</p>
<p>“Banquo?”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>I do not want to disappear.<br/>Still every day it feels like I’m fading, there’s me and there’s my son and there’s all the rest of them, the newly-crowned Malcolm, and Macduff always by his side, and Fleance among them, and what am I to him? I can’t say a word to him, I’m like a mist hanging before his eyes, something there but not there, no, I am not there. I keep writing. Notes to him. Scattered around the castle; he gathers them like breadcrumbs. I can’t speak, though I wish I could. There’s so much to say that just isn’t the same when put in writing. How proud I am of him, how brave he was, how I’m sorry, I’m sorry…</p><p>Every now and then I am alone again and I hear a whispered sigh, barely detectable, somewhere beyond the waking world, or fading fast away from it. </p><p>I left Macbeth up there on the battlements. They took his head down after a while, as it was scaring Fleance. I hated seeing the thing. To think, this was what had become of us. Did they ever find me? The earth will swallow me. I’ll be carried away by the wolves, the vultures… circling above. I wanted more than this. Years down the line there will be nothing but a whisper to remember me by, nothing to say that once, there lived a man called Banquo. Perhaps I will be a part of his story. </p><p>It’s not what I wanted. My legacy will be bound to his forever, but not in the way I had planned. My story, inseparable from his. But I had been foolish, just as father said.</p><p>Tonight, I went back up to where I had last seen him. I needed answers that I probably couldn’t get. I needed something. I trembled to stare in the face of the man who killed me, not out of fear of him, but just knowing he had chosen that path, after all we had, after I… I… </p><p>But seeing him reduced to what I saw on that first night, well, I wasn’t sure what to think.</p><p>I needed to see him. </p><p>The sky was like pitch above us, looking as if it would drip down and choke me, strangle me… I need to breathe. I can’t breathe. I will never breathe again.</p><p>What I found up there was little more than a mist, low to the ground, like the wispiest, grayest of clouds had been stolen out of the sky and imprisoned here, this dull, dreary castle. I reached out to touch it. He came into view, materializing from that mist, but still so faint, and I wondered if that’s how I looked to the rest of them. His empty eyes stared dead outward, right through me, sightless. He was lying there on the floor, cowering like a child. The child he told me about, who ran from his father’s screaming; that was a child I never knew. He became a strong man with many demons inside, until his demons took over, and I suppose I was only a casualty. </p><p>I brushed a hand across his. He sat up, frightened. Jerking the hand away. </p><p>He had known me before. I knew he tried speaking my name. What would be a sure way of knowing it was me…</p><p>I reached for his hand again. He flinched, but he didn’t move away this time. Traced my palm. Inquisitive.</p><p>A bit of anger hit me in that moment. He has to remember what he did to me, what he let them do to me. I took his hand and dragged it to my face. Pressed it to the now-scarred gashes that marred my cheeks. Twenty gashes, so they said. Twenty...</p><p> Those empty eyes went wide. He knew. He withdrew from me, pushing me away, and he… </p><p>He began sobbing. I watched him, rage still in me, pain, confusion… On that night, I hadn’t even known what was going on! I had my suspicions but… I didn’t think, back then, that he would have ever…. But I didn’t know, I didn’t know…</p><p>I grabbed hold of his hands again, he reached one out to touch me, and… I hadn’t expected it. He ran his thumb across my cheek. This look in his eyes, was it sorrow? </p><p>I grabbed his other hand, palm facing me, and began tracing out a message in his palm, slowly, so no confusion was possible. I ignored the stinging of tears in my eyes.</p><p>“Why?”</p><p>He shook his head, again and again. Seemed to mouth the words, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry….” and something else… </p><p>I moved away from him. But I was watching him, as he grasped at the floor, the air, all around him, looking for me. On his knees, he looked more defeated than ever. </p><p>He wiped more tears from his eyes. </p><p>I couldn’t feel sorry for him. After all the people he killed, not only me, but that innocent family, those children… He swore he loved me! He promised he’d never hurt me, he said that! He said it! He cared for Lulach, why then would he let another man’s children die like that? Why then would he wish for Fleance to die? </p><p>I was nothing to him! Nothing! To think I wasted my life on him, I wasted everything, I really thought, I really thought—</p><p>Now speechless, I have fewer ways to vent my anger, and I was furious, he… he took everything from me for a crown that belonged to someone else now anyway, I really was nothing to him! So let him rot up here!</p><p>I grabbed him by the arm, yanked hard. He fell forward, let out a whispered cry, catching himself with his other hand before he hit the floor. I managed to get behind him, pinning him down. How would I make this clear? I pressed his face into the rough stones in the floor, trying not to remember what his hair felt like when I used to run my fingers through it. </p><p>No… no I couldn’t. I realized, despite everything he had done, despite what he had done to me and others, I wouldn’t hurt him. I couldn’t. It was not in my nature, and I suppose that’s why I was weaker than he. </p><p>Strangely, he lay there the entire time, not fighting me. He did not attempt to escape. Maybe he knew he deserved it. </p><p>But something still stopped me. I climbed off of him, and over to one of the walls, and there I just… cried. </p><p>There was a time he and I were happy, a time long ago. I struggle to imagine it now. We were full of life, once. Full of life. I really believed his lies; every single one of them, and that stung most of all. That it was all a lie. Why did I bother with him? I already knew he didn’t love me. Why did I come up here? </p><p>I’m sorry you only saw me as an obstacle. </p><p>He was searching again. Not caring anymore, I reached my foot out toward where he was, and he gripped the toe of my boot. He had found me. He crawled toward me, hands reaching for where he expected my face to be, I’m assuming. </p><p>I guided his hand a bit, and his hand rested on my face, streaked with tears. Concern in those empty eyes, he tried to wipe them with his sleeve but I… I shoved him. I would not take any tenderness from him, though deep down I still desired it. I couldn’t trust him, I would not, not again. I rose from the floor, looking back to see him confused, his head tilted toward where he heard my footsteps, and then I left him. I found a lantern hanging in the hall. I yanked it from it’s hook, threw it to the ground where it smashed to bits with a satisfying crash.  <br/>Let them believe it fell by accident.</p><p>I tried not to think of him alone up there. </p><p>I couldn’t… I needed time. I needed him to be far away from me, I… needed, to move on.</p><p>I needed…<br/>I hated to even think of it.</p><p>I didn’t need anything.</p>
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